Spiritual consciousness - the remedy for every ill

When the world and its cares weigh heavily on our hearts, where can we find the inner refreshment we so sorely need? What is it that brings genuine, lasting release from the aches and pains of mind and body?

We don't have to wait until all human remedies fail in order to find out that what we are really looking for is God. To become conscious of God, to genuinely feelm Spirit's presence and reality, is to bring His goodness into our experience in ever greater degree.

''Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual, - neither in nor of matter, - '' writes Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science, ''and the body will then utter no complaints. If suffering from a belief in sickness, you will find yourself suddenly well.'' n1

n1 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p.14.

What a refreshing, healing thought to realize that our real Life is spiritual , wholly apart from matter! That we are not, in fact, sinning mortals stuck in physicality. That our true being ism what Christ Jesus showed it to be - the beloved son of God. True, such thoughts do contradict everything the material senses say about us. But they also healm, when spiritually understood. Thousands have proved this. I proved it just recently when I had a severe ear infection.

The pain was nearly unbearable, and the hearing loss was almost complete in the infected ear. Being a Christian Scientist, and having proved God's healing power many times before, I naturally turned to Him in prayer. But my prayer wasn't a pleading with God to ''fix up'' a diseased ear. Rather, it was a persistent effort to bring my thoughts and feelings into line with what God knows - His all-inclusive spiritual goodness, in which there is no evil, disease , or pain.

I strove, as the Bible says, to ''let (that) mind be in (me), which was also in Christ Jesus'' n2 - that is, to be receptive to the healing thoughts God constantly sends. Above all else, I held to the idea that God is Love and that in a universe created by perfect Love, there could be no pain-stricken mortal, only the child of His care, created in His image and at peace.

n2 Philippians 2:5.

At first, nothing seemed to be happening, but I continued praying. I took great comfort in Jesus' promise ''Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.'' n3 So I kept on ''knocking'' and trusting in our heavenly Father's love and tender mercies. Then , slowly at first, like the coming dawn, a very clear consciousness of Love's reality began breaking through the suffering.

n3 Matther 7:7.

It was a revelation. The most wonderful feeling of God's love for me and everyone filled my heart and illumined my thinking. I could actually sense something of man's spiritual existence as a child of God. The pain immediately began diminishing and was gone within the day. Not only did the hearing return, but a hearing loss sustained years before in the Army was restored.

If even a moment of spiritual consciousness can heal, think what lies in store for us as this consciousness becomes more and more constant through spiritual growth. Heaven itself! Christ Jesus indicated that the kingdom of heaven is within us. And he expected us to follow him to heaven - to the full and everlasting consciousness of Spirit as man's only Life. DAILY BIBLE VERSE How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. . . . A day in thy courts is better than a thousands. . . . The Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. Psalms 84:1-4, 10, 11